


time of miracles

by aes3plex



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Gen, do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aes3plex/pseuds/aes3plex
Summary: He comes awake with a start, aware that he has been sleeping on watch: an unforgivable, though it can’t have been a minute and certainly the master has not noticed, or Francis would have been kicked already.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier & Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44
Collections: 12 Days of Carnivale ~ 2018





	time of miracles

**Author's Note:**

> This was written & posted on Tumblr for 12 Days of Carnivale 2018.

He comes awake with a start, aware that he has been sleeping on watch: an unforgivable, though it can’t have been a minute and certainly the master has not noticed, or Francis would have been kicked already. Under the canvas that shades the quarterdeck it is still as hot as blazes in the high bright Pacific sun: four, perhaps five bells in the afternoon, unless he has slept much longer than he thinks.

Out across the clear blue white-capped waves he can see nothing: just an arc of indefinite horizon, uninterrupted.

“Francis,” says Fitzjames, from somewhere behind him.

It jars, of course. James, dying: the sores on his lips. His open mouth and his eyes no less bright in the minutes after: only unmoving, now. Spark extinguished. His lips, parted. Stories spent.

Francis turns to him.

On the deck he stands like something from a magazine, in his commander’s full dress, his collar white, his tie unassailable. Not a strand of grey in his shining hair. Taller than Francis remembers him: broader in the shoulder.

The way he looks makes something twist in Francis which he hasn’t felt in years: heat, pressure, longing. He raises his hand despite himself: reaches:

“You’re a lieutenant,” James says, with just a touch of amusement.

Francis looks down at himself: his neat undress blues, brass buttoned. White trousers tucked in to the boots he’d always liked and never quite convinced himself to buy. Slimmer than he was when he’d worn this uniform, and he can’t see his own face but he feels—younger. He pulls his hand back to his side. A moment ago everything had made perfect sense.

“I suppose I am,” he says.

“Well,” says James, “It all changes, anyway.”

“James,” Francis says.

“How long,” James says. Cocks his head. He doesn’t look sorrowful or ruined or aching: just curious. Dim sun through the canvas tracing his cheekbone and the curve of his lip and the absurd, beautiful line of his jaw, so that Francis wants to reach out and follow it with his hand. (So many years he had traced it in memory, until he wasn’t sure he remembered at all.) Francis had forgotten what he looked like when he wasn’t in pain, and it’s been—

“Years,” he says. “Decades.”

“Ah,” says James. Swallows. “It’s hard to say, here. Weeks, perhaps. Since I—saw you last.”

“You _died_ ,” Francis says, despite himself. Burns at how raw his voice sounds: all these English words, springing out of him unexpected and uncontrolled.

“Yes,” James says. A long pause: the steady roll of an easy ship through blue water. Is she crewed, Francis wonders, in that sailor’s part of himself that must always know how things set and quarter. Or does she merely slide forward on her own. (So long, since he’s been under sail. Another joy blown away in the wind.)

“Thank you,” James says. “For making it easy.” Francis swallows, thickly. Years trying not to think of it: his hand on James’s throat. (Sometimes, in the smoky dark, his dreams twisted down other paths: all the ways they might have touched before that fatal intimacy. Always he woke with lungs full of ashes, dry and acrid, and dust in his mouth.) He can feel tears threatening behind his eyes, and something wordless and barely human rising in his throat.

He takes a step towards James. Another and then momentum takes him: in an instant he is there, and James has opened his arms to receive him: without concern or confusion, just as if he perfectly understands. Against him James is solid and warm: correct in every detail. The texture of the wool of his coat under Francis’s fingers: the impossibly tiny stitches of the seams.

“Your hair is red,” James says, above his head. Sounds, implausibly, distraught. “I suppose I knew,” he says, “but—” His hand comes up to stroke down Francis’s shoulder blade.

They stand like that for a moment, in the heavy heat of the sun, with the sea airs, slightly cooler, moving around them.

Eventually Francis steps back: straightens himself. Sniffs.

“There,” James says. “You’re yourself again.” Means, of course, that Francis has recovered his captain’s coat and stance. “For the best,” James says. “Henry’d have had a fit if we had to rearrange the cabins again.”

Francis breathes: steady, steady.

“Are they all,” he says, and then can’t quite—

“Yes,” James says, pleased with himself. The old familiar look which Francis had so loathed and which now he wants so much to see again. “Well, no. A few missing. A few—not as you’ll recall them. Sir John is a midshipman, most days. Last I saw he was up the foremast, skylarking.” A smile, as if at some secret. “Goodsir is elsewhere, though we see him from time to time. Stanley likewise. Mr Diggle. A few of the others, too. Hickey we put ashore on an island: his request, and the crew voted in favour.”

“Thomas,” Francis says, his mouth dry.

“Blanky? Hale, whole, cursing a streak even now I’m sure, though he comes and goes, too. Jopson? Will be delighted to see you. Bunking in with Edward, I believe.”

“And the ship,” Francis says, his throat dry.

“Oh, you’ll like her,” James says, with a splendid white smile. “She changes, of course. Frigate, three-decker, sweet little sloop-of-war. She was a paddle steamer, the day I came aboard. Graham was furious.”

Whatever crosses Francis’s face makes James laugh. “Yes,” he says, “I know.” He watches Francis for a moment, smiling. “What is she being for you,” he says eventually, and Francis closes his eyes. Turns to the railing to let the warm salt wind strike his face. “ _Briton_ ,” he says. “In the Pacific. Off Pitcairn. 1814.”

“Ah,” says James, softly. He joins Francis at the railing: Francis opens his eyes to look at him. He is older, now, the way Francis remembers: the lines deeper on his face. His uniform remains unassailably correct. As Francis watches him he blinks, slowly, and the slightest hint of a flush appears in his cheeks.

“What course have you set,” Francis says, though it hardly matters.

“Do you know,” James says, “I have no idea.”


End file.
